I’ve been getting questions about the use of unmanned systems for the recent horrific Montecito mudslides, so let me extend my earlier tweet, both in terms of thoughts and prayers to the victims and also the technical details. It does not appear that small UAS are being used by the formal responders for Montecito. Unmanned … Continue reading “Top 5 Surprises in Unmanned Systems for Mudslides”
There’s nothing like appearing on the home page of Emergency Management Magazine to trigger a “holy cow, I haven’t been keeping up the blog!” It’s been hugely busy here between working with students colleagues, and industry partners on creating use cases for robots for Ebola and other infectious diseases with a grant from the National … Continue reading “Emergency Management Magazine…”
There have been many nature-inspired gadgets and devices. This method is called biomimicry or biomimemtics. You have products like shark skin which inspired swim suits and submarine coatings; Velcro, the hook and loop fastener that was inspired by plant burrs that stick to dog hair and a new adhesive inspired by Geckos. Now, snakes have … Continue reading “Snake Bots to the Rescue”
Meet the sidewinder rattlesnake robot! This motorized serpent can actually move across sandy surfaces, both flat and inclined, an exploit that has escaped engineers so far. Recently, the team of Georgia tech researchers has portrayed for the first time how sidewinder rattlesnakes also known as Crotalus Cerastes, move across a challenging sandy mound. The study … Continue reading “Snake Robots: Slithering Machines Could Help Search & Rescue Missions”
Dr. Tetsu Kimura and member of our IRS-CRASAR expeditions is coming back from Robocup Rescue in Iran and has asked about CRASAR robots for the Iran earthquake. I am taking the liberty of sharing my reply: The earthquake is awful and what another tragic loss of life. I am a great admirer of Amir and … Continue reading “Iran Earthquake: CRASAR monitoring but this type is hard for robots”
Researcher Daniel Goldman, a professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is studying how animals move through granny surfaces, and trying to create a robot legs that can help a robot easily navigate through theses rough terrain environment. Here is the full article from Phys Org Here is two more … Continue reading “Terradynamics: Technique could help designers predict how legged robots will move on granular surfaces”
The horrific tornadoes in Missouri and the mudslide at the Malaysia orphanage are very sad. The events were a stark reminder of the lessons learned at the annual Summer Institute on emergency informatics hosted last weekend by Texas A&M at TEEX’s Disaster City and EOTC facility May 19-21. Missouri illustrates that it’s both response and … Continue reading “Tornadoes and mudslides”
Dan Goldman’s work in duplicating sandfish made it into Science News– a reminder of how biomimetic robots could make a real difference in disasters such as the New Zealand earthquake with its dense rubble. The responders continue to find survivors which is fantastic but are racing the clock. We wish we were there to help … Continue reading “NZ Quake and Sandfish”
CRASAR’s connection in China, Dr. Juan Rojas, saw this about the Bello, Colombia landslide. Our sympathy and prayers for the victims and their families. Landslides are tough for robots. CRASAR’s Sam Stover and I assisted with the 2005 La Conchita, California, mudslide which is described here. The short version of what we learned was that … Continue reading “Colombia landslide: robots and landslides”
